16. The petitioners indicate that in 1991, the Indigenous Community, through is leaders, began to take administrative steps vis-a-vis the competent agencies, i.e. the Institute of Rural Well-being (IBR: Instituto de Bienestar Rural) and the Paraguayan Institute on Indigenous Affairs (INDI: Instituto Paraguayo del Indígena), in order to secure restitution of part of their ancestral lands. The steps were taken in the context of the procedure established in Law No. 904/81, “Status of Indigenous Communities,” opening up administrative record No. 7,597/91 of the IBR. 17. The petitioners add that after several years of efforts, in 1997 the INDI2established that the steps taken in file No. 7,597/91 and the anthropological study performed by the Centro de Estudios Antropológicos (CEADUC) of the Universidad Católica Nuestra Señora de Asunción fully demonstrated that the area claimed by the Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous Community was within the traditional habitat of the Enxet, adding that “each additional period of time that passes represents a serious attack on the integrity of the indigenous habitat claimed due to the pressure and acts of economic groups interested in the resources of the Western region” and resolved “to support fully the claim of the Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous Communities and suggest to the IBR that it consider terminated its administrative role within its limits and request where appropriate the expropriation of the real properties claimed by the Indigenous Community.” 18. By virtue of that resolution of the INDI, on May 13, 1997, the leaders of the Indigenous Community, with the sponsorship of deputies Andrés Avelino Díaz and Juan Carlos Ramírez Montalbetti, went before the Chamber of Deputies of the Congress calling on it to adopt a law for the expropriation of approximately 14,404 hectares3 corresponding to part of its traditional habitat. In June 1998, the sponsoring deputies decided to withdraw the proposed law, after the negative report of the Committee on Human Rights and Indigenous Affairs of the Chamber, and they decided to submit it in a subsequent legislative session. In June 1999, the indigenous leaders from the community present a new request for expropriation to the Senate, with the sponsorship of Senator Juan Carlos Ramírez Montalbetti. On November 16, 2000, the Senate dismissed the request for expropriation by Resolution No. 692. 19. In relation to the exhaustion of domestic remedies, i.e., the administrative and legislative remedies provided for in Paraguay’s domestic law, the petitioners allege that the Sawhoyamaxa Community has made all possible efforts, in keeping with the principles of international law, to uphold its property right over its traditional lands. 20. They add that while the community had access to the remedies provided for in Paraguay’s domestic jurisdiction, and that they pursued such remedies in a timely and procedurally correct fashion, they have not been effective in restoring the Community’s right to its lands. The petitioners state that more than 10 years have elapsed since the Indigenous Community began the procedures provided for by the Paraguayan State necessary for claiming part of its traditional habitat without, to date, any definitive resolution. 21. In the context of the proceeding for claiming their ancestral habitat, and in keeping with Paraguay’s domestic law, in December 1993 the Community sought a preliminary injunction from the courts to prevent changes from being made on the lands, and another judicial measure noting litigation pending4 over the community’s ancestral property, for the purpose of internal community life so long as these do not violate the fundamental rights established in this Constitution. Indigenous customary law shall be taken into account in jurisdictional conflicts. Article 64. On community property. The indigenous peoples have the right to community property rights in the land, in sufficient extent and quality to preserve and develop their particular ways of life. The State shall provide them these lands freely; they shall be unattachable, indivisible, imprescribable, not susceptible to be used to secure contractual obligations, nor to be leased; in addition, they shall be tax-exempt. 2 Resolution P.C. Nº 138/97 Article 1, of the Paraguayan Institute on Indigenous Affairs, May 7, 1997. 3 Presidential Decree Nº 3789 of June 23, 1999, which declared the Sawhoyamaxa Community to be in a state of emergency indicated that the community was claiming 15,000 hectares of its ancestral territory. 4 Article 1 of Law 43/89 provides: “No innovation of fact or law shall be admitted to the detriment of the settlements of indigenous communities during the processing of administrative and judicial cases that arise from the definitive titling of the lands.” 3